3 Things I Learned About T1D From my 10-Hour Road Trip

What do you do when a road trip that’s only supposed to last 7 hours turns into a 10 hour trek?

The answer isn’t cry, or whine, or freak the eff out. The answer is to roll with the punches…because you have no other choice.

At least that’s the way I saw it when my journey from Virginia to Massachusetts dragged out from 9 A.M. to 7 P.M. a couple of Fridays ago.

As someone who loathes driving, I was dreading this trip. But I knew it was important for me to conquer a fear of long-distance driving, as well as bring my car back to Massachusetts for a cutting-it-close car inspection. Plus, driving is much cheaper than flying, and you can’t beat the convenience of loading up your car with as much crap as you need to pack.

So I made myself do it, and besides teaching myself that I can handle a longer road trip, I also learned three interesting things about my diabetes from the many hours I spent in my car:hugging the cactus - a t1d blog.png

1. My diabetes doesn’t like for me to stay idle for so long.

This trip was an excellent reminder of how much my body and my diabetes rely on me to get up and move throughout the day. Throughout the workweek, I tend to get up from my desk chair at least once every hour, if only to stretch my legs. But that frequency of movement must make a difference, because I only visited a rest stop once during the full 10 hour trip. It felt awesome to move around for a few minutes, but I was eager to get back on the road and didn’t walk much while I was at the rest stop. Now, I’m wondering if I should factor that into my next long drive, but the idea of taking too many rest stops and prolonging my travel time is not exactly favorable to me…unless it means that my diabetes is guaranteed to be better behaved.

2. My diabetes is better behaved when I eat regular meals.

I eat a lot throughout the day. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, and at least two snacks are part of my daily meal plan. I typically eat all three meals and two snacks around the same times each day, to boot, so my diabetes depends on that consistency. It’s no wonder that I was dealing with rebelliously high blood sugars for most of my drive home, because I was fueling myself with absolute garbage: chicken nuggets (and only chicken nuggets for lunch), Fritos for a snack, and a granola bar for ANOTHER snack. In hindsight, it would’ve been much easier for me to pack a healthy lunch and maybe an additional, in-case-of-emergency snack, because I could’ve had a low-carb option available to me whenever I was ready for it. Plus, chicken nuggets and Fritos are things that I rarely consume, so of course my blood sugar wasn’t loving them.

3. My diabetes HATES stress.

And my goodness, was I stressed. I hate driving, period, so I doubly hate it when it’s a long distance. And my stress was exacerbated by the fact that I had to transport 60 cupcakes, on ice, back to Massachusetts with me for a bridal shower that I was planning for my cousin. That’s quite a bit to contend with, so it makes sense that my blood sugar shot up within minutes of me hitting the road. Even though I ran temp basals and bolused somewhat aggressively, it didn’t make much of a difference in my levels. And I suppose that I was hesitant to give myself too much insulin while I was behind the wheel, because going low seemed more dangerous and difficult to contend with than going high. Truthfully, though, there’s nothing fun about high or low blood sugar. It doesn’t matter if I’m driving, sleeping, exercising, whatever – anything other than “in-range” is just a pest to me.

So now that I’m aware of these three things, what am I going to do about it? For starters, I’m definitely going to get better about planning my meals for long car trips. I’m also going to try to take it easy a little bit…I put so much pressure on myself (I’m very good at working myself up into hysterics, really). So I might try some mindfulness exercises (e.g., meditating) before the next long drive…because anything I can do to take back control of my diabetes before going on my next one will be worth it.